


Zola's Experiments

by Starla-Nell (Princess_Nell)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: pain description
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 16:02:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18055619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess_Nell/pseuds/Starla-Nell
Summary: This fills a small gap from Civil War: What if Bucky never told Steve that Zola's experiments made him a supersoldier?





	Zola's Experiments

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline:   
> Zemo briefly turned Bucky into the Winter Soldier.   
> Bucky wakes with his arm in a hydraulic press.   
> Sam & Steve ask him pointed questions.   
> This ficlet.   
> Sam, Steve, and Bucky go pick up the gear Sharon Carter picked up for them. In that ridiculous little blue Beetle. (Eyebrow waggle.)

Sam turns a corner to talk to Sharon and give Steve and Bucky time to talk. Steve breaks the uncomfortable silence first.

“I just need to understand something, Buck.”

Bucky shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “What’s that, Steve?” he asks. The hydraulic press hadn't even dented the damn arm. 

“The train. You survived the fall. That was Zola? He… before we started the Howling Commandos, he…”

“You never asked about that, Steve,” Bucky says defensively. “I left you openings, and you never asked, the _whole_ war.”

Steve looks down at his hands. “I know,” he says. He looks up, directly at Bucky. “I’m asking now.”

Bucky pushes his hand through his hair, blows air out of his lungs noisily. “You told us—the Howlies—at camp sometimes what it was like. For you, when they turned you into a super soldier.” Bucky pauses, but Steve stays silent. Bucky’s voice takes on that hazy, sing-song quality again. “You said it was a lifetime of pain, packed into the longest minute of your life.”

“Was that what it was like for you?”

Bucky shakes his head, and Steve relaxes… until Bucky talks again. “Zola didn’t care about his subjects. He wasn’t trying for a _short_ process.” Steve can feel the tension creeping up his back, into his shoulders, as Bucky looks up at Steve. “It was that level of pain. One lifetime per minute.” Bucky nods, then stills, staring over Steve’s shoulder. “But it lasted hours. Days.” Bucky lets his head hang. “I didn’t want you to know. I knew you’d get that Catholic guilt going, and I wasn’t going to do that to you unless you _asked_.” Bucky looks up again. “I thought I could use the supersoldier benefits—the focus, speed, better aim, sometimes the strength—to give Zola and Red Skull all of that pain back. Make them regret it.”

“That time outside the village in France,” Steve says, the memory coming to him crisp and clear. “That Hydra agent didn’t fall out of the tree.”

“Nope,” Bucky says, smiling. “I hit him.”

“You didn’t use the strength because we’d figure it out.”

Bucky shrugs. “Yeah.” He rubs his eyes, fingertips against his eyelids. “No one understands what it takes to be a supernaturally good shot.”

“If I would’ve known, I would’ve come after you once we had Zola.” Steve’s not sure if he means it as an accusation or an apology.

“I’ve read the history, Steve,” Bucky says, determined to make him understand. “If you’d’ve come after me, Red Skull would have bombed the Eastern Seaboard.”

“Someone else would’ve stopped him,” Steve says uncertainly.

“No one else could’ve stopped him. No one else was even looking at him.”

“The army would’ve sent someone down”—

“I wasn’t down there for long, Steve. Maybe a local found me. He was dressed like a local. Maybe Zola had people looking for me. Or maybe he predicted where our ambush would be and he was always going to throw one or both of us from that train.” Bucky stared through the wall again. “The army _had_ me before you hit Red Skull’s hideout. But Zola kept it from you.”

“The Strategic Scientific Reserve had you. If I’d’ve had any hope you were alive, then maybe…” Steve shook his head. He’d said too much. The pain in Bucky’s eyes shifts inward, but he changes the subject.

“I guess my plan worked. They regretted using me. Their next five subjects were Hydra.”

“Yeah, the elite force, you said.” Steve stares at the wall. He should be thinking about how to get to Syberia, but instead, he’s remembering the clues he’d willfully ignored. The times he should have asked and gave Bucky his space instead. “I guess it did.”

“When Zola… _worked on_ me after the fall, I thought we’d failed. He’d gotten away. Then they had evidence Zola was working with the SSR, _our_ SSR, and… well. That was worse. I didn’t know… didn’t know which side I was on anymore. There were orders, and I was a soldier, and it all got turned around. Hydra twisted my brain. I was working for order. Peace. But I knew.” Bucky looks up. “When you recognized me at the highway, I knew you wouldn’t want Hydra’s order. Hydra’s peace. I just”—he hits the wall, cracking the block with his fist—“didn’t know why that was important. And I started fighting back again. Been fighting since.”

“Brock mentioned he’d seen you, that you’d talked about me.”

Bucky shrugs. “I knew I knew you, I just didn’t know _why_.”

“She can get it,” Sam says, turning the corner. He looks at the two of them. “Bad timing?”

Steve glances at Bucky, gives him a half-smile. “No, we’re good. Let’s move.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> It's equally valid that Bucky did tell Steve, but 1) it didn't occur to Steve that Bucky could survive that fall because of the serum and 2) Steve had no reason to share this information with SHIELD.


End file.
